Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One
day the villagers told them, "Hey, there is an elephant in
the village today."

They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, "Even
though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it
anyway." All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone
of them touched the elephant.

"Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man
who touched his leg.

"Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the second man who
touched the tail.

"Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree," said
the third man who touched the trunkof the elephant.

"It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who
touched the ear of the elephant.

"It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who
touched the belly of the elephant.

"It is like a solid pipe," Said the sixth man who
touched the tusk of the elephant.

They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them
insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting
agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped
and asked them, "What is the matter?" They said,
"We cannot agree to what the elephant is like." Each
one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise
man calmly explained to them, "All of you are right. The
reason every one of you is telling it differently because each
one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So,
actually the elephant has all those features what you all
said."

"Oh!" everyone said. There was no more fight. They
felt happy that they were all right.

The moral of the story is that there may be some truth to what
someone says. Sometimes we can see that truth and sometimes not
because they may have different perspective which we may not
agree too. So, rather than arguing like the blind men, we should
say, "Maybe you have your reasons." This way we
dont get in arguments. In Jainism, it is explained that
truth can be stated in seven different ways. So, you can see how
broad our religion is. It teaches us to be tolerant towards
others for their viewpoints. This allows us to live in harmony
with the people of different thinking. This is known as the
Syadvada, Anekantvad, or the theory of Manifold Predictions.